1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to printing, and, more particularly, to a method of selecting inks for use in imaging with an imaging apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years many inkjet printers with multilevel color inks, sometimes referred to as “photo printers,” have been developed for home and office use. These printers typically perform six-color printing, and employ saturated cyan, saturated magenta, saturated yellow, saturated black, diluted cyan, and diluted magenta inks (CMYKcm). The photo printer cartridges are generally organized in such a way that the saturated cyan, magenta, and yellow inks are in one cartridge, referred to as a “color cartridge,” and the diluted cyan, diluted magenta, and saturated black are in another cartridge, referred to as a “photo cartridge.” The use of diluted inks helps to improve image quality so as to achieve photo-quality images. However, visual artifacts, such as mottling and smearing, are created if the diluted inks are not used appropriately.
The inks in the color and photo cartridges are typically either dye-based or pigment-based inks. The dye-based inks have a larger color gamut than pigment-based inks, but poorer light fastness, especially for the diluted inks, whereas the pigment-based inks have a smaller color gamut but much better light fastness. Light fastness pertains to the ability of a printed image to retain its original colorfulness, without excessive fading over a period of time. In order to provide a large color gamut while providing good light fastness, a hybrid approach has been taken, wherein both dye-based inks and pigment-based inks are employed by the photo printer to render images. Another advantage of using the hybrid approach is that it has good dynamic range of lightness across the range of different types of print media.
However, a problem with the hybrid approach is that the gloss transition between the pigment-based inks and the dye-based inks on glossy paper results in serious visual artifacts. Thus, in order to improve image quality by using the hybrid approach, not only must problems associated with using diluted and saturated inks be resolved, but the problems associated with using both dye-based inks and pigment-based inks must also be resolved so that both diluted and saturated inks in the form of dye-based inks and pigment-based inks may be employed by the photo printer.
What is needed in the art is an improved method of selecting inks for use in imaging with an imaging apparatus.